To think I am a bloody doctor, I shouldn't be working for a pittance after childcare?

[knackeredmother]

I am having a pissed off day so am probably BU.
I work 24 hours (plus much more unpaid overtime) a week as a GP registrar, this includes nights, weekends and long days until 10pm.
My take home pay is £1200 (after 5 years qualification).
I have 2 dc under 5 and employ a nanny as my son has lots of hospital admissions with an ongoing chest problem and my shifts mean nursery/childminder would be impossible. I also have no family to help out before I get flamed for having a nanny. There really is no other option for us that I can work out and nursery for 2 would not be much less money.
I pay our nanny about £800 a month gross for 17 hours per week (£10 p.h going rate). That leaves me £400 income to pay all of my outgoings.
My nanny has no childcare to pay for as she uses the 15 hours free government funding and has family help. Its not her fault but she has almost double the disposable income I have for working less and more sociable hours.
I'm using up annual leave today as poor ds is too sick to leave even with our nanny.
It's just made me think what is the point of going to work? I could stay at home, have no sick child stress and although I would be £400 a month down I wouldn't need to run a car, fork out bloody thousands pounds for professional exams and membership fees
I'm being unreasonable aren't I - somebody tell me it will all be worth it in the end!

Is that really how much you earn?

I'm a midwife, I work less hours than you and have been qualified less than you and my take home pay is more than that!

YANBU to feel how you are feeling - I think that is understandable. But you know you are also being a BU as things will get better. The whole point is that your career will progress and you will get higher wages. And your childcare bills will go down. It will be worth it in the end.

Aw it will be worth it in the end. When the children and older and you've kept a foothold in your career it WILL be worth it financially. Sure its shit now though. Don't throw away all your training for the sake of a few years of only "earning" £400 a month.

I've been where you are now as a lawyer with a severely brain damaged son and another one. When they were little I worked 3.5 days a week and after paying for a nanny, childminder, cleaner, ironing lady and gardener, travel to work etc I came out with £16 a week BUT it has definitely been worth it in the long run. Once they're at school you can cut back massively on the childcare etc.

A solicitor friend of mine took 4 years out to look after her dd and has never got back onto the ladder and is now doing a combination of childminding and running Jamie Oliver parties to make ends meet.

Stick with it, it'll be worth it one day.

Surely though within 5 years your take home pay will be a lot more? Like heidi says, don't throw away all that training!

YANBU! I am shocked at how little you are paid for doing that job! My dh gets more than that and he does a job that most people could train for quite easily.

I almost daren't ask, given the recent benefit-bashing-bonanza, but aren't you entitled to tax credits? Or is your nanny not registered as a childcare provider?

Sorry you're having a bad day. How much do you like being a doctor?

But how much will you make once you have finished your training? Your current low wages are to cover the cost of your training.

pmd you!

Yes, but think how much better it will be when you are earning the average GP's wage of over 100,000 pounds a year and doing no overnights or weekends for the priviledge. YANBU but you are training and will then get a very large wage with a very generous pension contribution. But presumably if you've done all this training and your medical degree, you are used to playing the long game.

YANBU to feel like you do. I wouldn't give it all up though, in 2 or 3 years you will be kicking yourself. I would look for a different practice. I have to agree with viva your wage does sound a little low for your job.

People will say that YABU because you're in it for the longer term benefit of when you no longer need such expensive childcare and still have a career.

For myself, I stopped regulatr employment after DC2 for exactly this reason. My take home was about £400 too, and I decided to earn it other ways by doing freelance in the evening and less skilled work that I could fit round DH so we didn't have to use childcare. It was the double whammy of so much time commuting and working and so little financial benefit for us. All the juggling was too stressful for so little at the end of it. It has worked out OK for us, and I have always worked in some capacity, albeit v part time, but my CV and skills look OK. However, the real challenge will come in a few years when the youngest is at school, as I really really want to develop my career again. It will be impossible for me to go back to what I was doing before, and I'll probably have to either retrain or slowly work my way up. It will be v v hard to find a way to start off again part time, yet working fulltime will be impossible. I am confident I will find a way, but it will be tricky.

I'm not sure there is a good answer really.

Well you earn less than i used to and dh does now, that only works out £11 an hour after tax and ni. Are you sure your tax code is right?
One children are at school you will feel the benifits of your hard work, but this is a common problem for working parents.
You do have choices, you could look at working around dh work, taking more hours, working somewhere that pays better or just sitting tight. £400 left a month after bills is nothing to moan about btw!

YAB a bit U as you are effectively saying that, as a doctor, you are more "deserving" in some way than your nanny (or, in fact, than anyone who isn't a doctor). I'm sure you didn't mean to come across like that in your OP but that is how it reads to me.

Having 2 pre-school-aged DCs is hard. I've been there, I sympathise. Yes, it will be worth it one day - your costs will drop dramatically once they are at school.

The OP is not training. She qualified 5 years ago. Some people have an inflated idea of what some earn - registrars don't earn much. BUT her salary will increase as she gets older and it will be worth it.

YANBU...I work in an office, part time (ish) and I earn more than that!

See, thats where this country has it all wrong...the people who really deserve to earn decent money just done.

I dont blame you for being pissed off!

But how can you live on £400 a month, what about rent or mortgage?

Am puzzled by the nights & weekends part. I thought GP's now only did that as an optional extra for more money?

About to get in the same boat myself. Going back to teaching part-time next week after mat leave and after 2 sets of nursery fees and £200 in fuel (I have tried for years to get a move closer but nothing comes up), I will have about £100 left over. If I'm lucky. And that of course will in effect get eaten up with the upkeep of the car which we could do without if push came to shove as DH works locally.

I console myself with the fact that I love my job and for me being a SAHM long term is not an option as it would drive me crackers (sorry DD and DS! But mummy is really looking forward to no nappies and a legally protected lunchtime 3 days next week ), especially as if I give up my job there is no guarantee of getting another in a few years (I teach an optional secondary subject). I didn't spend 5 years at Uni to lose all that.

So I am essentially working to keep my job. Crazy, isn't it?

Everyone who works hard deserves a decent income at the end of it, but this isn't forever.

Just keep thinking how much better off you will be once your DC are at school.
I can't wait to be £1000 per month richer!! :)

You have to earn a fortune to still have money left after Childcare. Infact you need 2 whopping salaries! This is part of the 'squeezed middle' everyone is talking about. Most of my buddies who are back at work are working because they want to not to make money.

yabu

at least you get to see thrombosed piles during course of your work?

A doctor does deserve more pay than a nanny, and I am qualified as a nanny! I'm sure it was much easier to to train to be nanny than it would be to become a doctor!

Right, I was thinking that the OP had done her 5 years' at medical school and was working as a junior doctor? As she is earning a level of pay that a junior doctor would earn. Isn't a Registrar someone that is on part of the training process before they specialise?